The Debaters (2017)
Fatou, Zouhoudi, Assia, Gabriel...are 14 years old. The school they're attending is nested in the project of the suburbs of Paris. They've decided to form a debate club where they can discuss about what matters most to them: gender equality, immigration, voting. We're filming them during a year, in this democratic forum of their own making, from their timid beginnings to the final debate at the National Assembly. They discover freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. Here, everything's in play: their own identities, their nascent opinions, how they fit in the world and why they want to be heard.
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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.